Nine Eleven

Today, on its 5th anniversary, we are supposed to be remembering the victims of 9/11. Have we at some point forgotten them? That attack, which was not the first on U.S. soil, nor the last, is seared into the brain of every American and it is to the advantage of our president and his party to make sure it stays there. What we need to keep our wits about; however is not the event, but the aftermath. The media excess, the political campaign buttons. The current administration used that event to plunge this country into chaos. We were divided, intentionally I firmly believe, and we now hate, not only the terrorists, but each other. We have watched our freedoms dwindle, our savings disappear, our already tarnished world reputation turn into ash. We have put our generation and our children's future generations into a debt that will last many lifetimes. We have made a place in history that will be derided for time eternal.

As for those who were lost? They behaved admirably or they didn't. They were lost and their friends and families suffered that loss. It was a horrific way to die, but there are many horrific ways to die. We are watching some of them daily. Leftover landmines that blow the limbs off children; starvation in unconscionable numbers; genocide that seems of little importance, occurring as it does in oil-poor regions of the world; eradicated disease (eradicated in countries that can afford it); famine; drought. Do we turn our attention to those atrocities, that terrorism? Nope, not media gold, not exciting politics.

But wow, that Bin Laden! As long as he remains alive, he will keep the political fires burning. That's why (does this make sense?): Let's have a war in Iraq!! Let's destroy Iraq! Let's rain terror down on the heads of tens of thousands of innocent men, women, and children who had NOTHING to do with 9/11. Let's destroy THEIR lives forever (doesn't that make US terrorists?).

Now they ask us to "remember the victims of 9/11." How could we not remember? WE are the victims of 9/11.

Blue Jay

He dropped a piece of thread on his way to the suet feeder out back. I didn't pay any attention as I was busy tying up a tall potato vine. Later on, I glanced down and saw something kind of purple and a little bit shiny and I still didn't pick it up. Then something about it caught my eye. It was familiar. I leaned over and looked. Turns out to be a thread over three feet long. It has shiny purple and turquoise bits of thread through it and is very distinctive and I know where I have seen it before. It's the thread I used to sew the quilt for my son's AIDs quilt panel. The panel was turned over to the Names Project in October 1996 and is stored there now with the other 45,000 panels, but that's another story really. What I am concerned about now is the thread.

All day long I have pondered that thread and each thought has led somewhere else, to a different subject with more questions. I will admit, for just a brief little while, the thought of why it showed up brought tears to my eyes, as there is no logical explanation for it. I do not use my sewing stuff very often, it has been possibly six months since I last opened the container. I never use it outdoors and that particular thread has only and will only ever be used on Ed's panel. There is a good rule of thumb I try to apply in cases like this, "don't look for answers where there are none."


So, I will mostly let it go. If there is a God, all questions will be answered in due time. Where the thread came from is so insignificant as to be almost laughable. There is, after all, the question of why a 31-year-old who had never harmed a soul gets to go through hell and then die. I presume God will answer that one also. The gut-tearing pain of those who love him will be answered or not. Does it really matter? Who are we to demand answers? Perhaps, I should say, to desire answers, for desire them we do. We want to know why and we have wanted to know for so long about so many things, that we have come to expect that there must be an answer.

Shortly before he died, by then a skeleton, almost not human, we were watching CNN - the shots of refugees trying to escape the genocide going on in their country and he said, "I am so ashamed." I thought briefly that he meant he had not raised his voice to protest this country's betrayal, but now I'm pretty sure he meant he was ashamed that he felt, perhaps for one second, afraid and sorry for his own death. It would have seemed to him selfish to be thinking of himself when there were those tens of thousands with nothing but hollow eyes and fear. He would have thought that then. He had entered into that space where all becomes clear. And I had not.

He said to me one day 3 or 4 months before he died, "I am not afraid to die." He looked at me and he said, "it is harder to lose someone you love than it is to die." For once in my life I understood instantly what was happening. He was trying to give me a gift with no strings attached, a gift I could carry with me until I reached my own grave, a gift I could choose to accept or let be. He attempted to alleviate my pain - this young man who was going through something unimaginable - he tried to leave me something priceless. And he did.

Eddie, I do not know who you were. But somehow, as every day unfolds in this life I have left, I think I have to thank my father for sending you. Surely you two conspired and I have messed it up horribly, or think I have. Will that someday too turn out to be something else entirely? Will I glimpse a clarity that will allow me to rest?

There go those questions again.

Previews of My New Home

When you saddle a horse, I think you wait till he takes a breath and then cinch him up. That's kind of the way I feel, like every time I take a breath, someone cinches up and there's that much less room to breathe. Pretty soon the turning around space won't be big enough to, well, turn around.

Black-headed Grosbeak

He is sitting there on top of the suet feeder - I am not much of a photographer; this guy deserves the best - he has a lovely voice and always sings a few notes when he arrives (to let me know he's here I think). His song reminds me of a poem, "...like a golden bell hung in my heart." It doesn't hurt that he is also a magnificent beauty. His mate has a lovely warble also, which I understand is common among the finches. She is not quite so brilliantly colored, her breast being more of a pastel shade of his bright tequila sunrise. His back is black with very bold white stripes and hers is more brown, sparrow colored, but she does have a very strong white stripe on her head. They are both about the size of a robin.

When I first saw this bird, I thought someone's parrot had escaped. Both he and his mate are somewhat elusive. While the nuthatches, chickadees, and woodpeckers don't seem to mind me being around, this bird prefers that I either stay very still or not come outside at all. They do not like sudden movements or noise. Still, I considered myself lucky to inch the screen door open and get this picture before he flew off. I lived here nearly two years before the Grosbeaks got bold enough to visit the bird feeders. Now I see them nearly every day. They are often the first birds in the very early morning and the last in the evening, with an occasional fly-by during the day to pluck a tasty morsel.

Why would anyone ever put a bird in a cage? It seems insanely cruel.

Ethics

"Ethics, too, are nothing but reverence for life. That is what gives me the fundamental principle of morality, namely, that good consists in maintaining, promoting, and enhancing life, and that destroying, injuring, and limiting life are evil." - Albert Schweitzer

"The true rule, in determining to embrace, or reject any thing, is not whether it have any evil in it; but whether it have more of evil, than of good. There are few things wholly evil, or wholly good. Almost every thing, especially of governmental policy, is an inseparable compound of the two; so that our best judgment of the preponderance between them is continually demanded." - Abraham Lincoln

Everyone has been accused of something they didn't do. Usually it happens when you're a kid, but it has happened to all of us once or more than once. It feels bad. Mostly because the louder you yell, the more it seems like maybe you DID do it. Remaining silent, refusing to dignify a false accusation is more honorable - at least it feels that way, but doesn't always exonerate.

I wonder though, might it be a bigger sin, a greater failing to NOT be accused of something you DID do?

Postcard: TrueMajority.org

Click on the link above. Listen, watch, think. What is this craziness and why does it go on? What kind of a world has been happening while we were taking care of *other* things? What is depicted in the link is the result of our country's greed and utter disregard, not only for the world, but for the desire, and right, of each of us for peace, health, education, and life.

Who are we really if we keep turning our backs on those who have no voice (read "money, power, position") and must suffer with what we have wrought?

Start making calls to your representatives. Write letters to your newspapers and your politicians. Make a difference in someone else's life. Start now, today. Go to your grave (hopefully in the far, far distant future) knowing that you have made a difference, that you cared, that you tried.

It may be the most important thing you do in your life and you may never see the result. That is the true meaning and blessing of giving and sharing, not the 35 cents you occasionally drop in a jar on a counter or the $250 you give to Mercy Corp - though please don't stop doing those things.

What we do for others, though it is difficult and may cost us in time, effort, and money, is more important than any kind of material or personal success we are lucky enough to find in our lifetimes.

The Land of Beginning Again

"I wish that there were some wonderful place

Called the Land of Beginning Again

Where all our mistakes and all our heartaches

And all of our selfish grief

Could be dropped like a shabby old coat by the door

And never be put on again." - Louise Fletcher Tarkington

Those words are excerpts from a poem I discovered in high school. Whatever was going through my head about those words then is a mystery to me now. Something entirely different than what I am thinking these days.

There have been so many people to forgive, including myself. In so many ways that has been the hardest part of all. It is an ongoing process - a few steps forward, a few steps back. A constant battle of judgment, redemption, accusation, bewilderment, and precious moments of peace.

The ability to forgive is, in my estimation, the most important lesson we can ever learn. It has the power to bring health and healing to hearts, minds, and bodies. It has the power to bring us back "to the land of beginning again." It is, however, oh so difficult to master. The words, "forgive me, I forgive you, I forgive myself" are so very easy to say, but they are only just words. They bear repeating over and over. They need reevaluation, reassertion, and the touch of a hand. They need to be repeated out loud, and silently to no one who is there.

When an offense insinuates itself into your awareness, those words need to be used to beat it back to nothingness, for the offense is now gone in fact. It was provoked out of selfishness, confusion, ignorance, maybe even fear. There can be no explanation, there needs be no explanation other than life is what it is.

Forgiveness heals the giver and often, only the giver. It is all that is necessary, though it is a monumental task and may require a lifetime. The idea of forgiveness should always be close by. It is necessary for a peaceful death. It is necessary for a graceful old age. It is required of us before we can pass to generations the knowledge we have stored up for them. Practice it.